All Eyes on Canada’s Women’s Olympic Curling Team

There’s never been a women’s curling team quite like this one.

Since rival skip Tracy Fleury joined Canada’s Rachel Homan in 2022, the wins have piled up. From tepid beginnings the squad accelerated – to a ridiculous degree – when Homan moved back to the tee to call the (skip’s) game and the “Homan Empire” is now expected to win almost every game they play.

The numbers are staggering. In their career against this Olympic field, Homan and longtime teammate Emma Miskew are 99-33 for a 75% win percentage. The math jumps to nearly 80% (62-16) since 2022, with Fleury and Sarah Wilkes in the lineup.

As one might now expect, the Canadians have won the last two world championships (26-3) and seven out of their last 14 Grand Slam events, making the final another four times.  

The Olympics, of course, are a different animal. If anyone can beat Canada – most likely Switzerland’s Silvana Tirinzoni – they’ll need to hope that Homan dwells on the past. 

Homan’s Olympic record isn’t great; she and Miskew went 4-5 at PyeongChang 2018 and Homan also missed the podium playing mixed doubles at Beijing 2022.

Now for Switzerland. Tirinzoni and her fourth, sharpshooter Alina Paetz, have won four world titles since joining forces in 2018. 

They have excellent won/loss records against everyone but Canada (3-15 since 2022) including a sparkling 12-2 mark against Sweden.

Past Olympic disappointment might lurk here, too. Tirinzoni and Paetz lost the semifinal four years ago to Japan, and then the bronze medal game to Sweden.

Speaking of… Sweden’s Anna Hasselborg. She and her longtime teammates won Olympic bronze four years ago and gold at PyeongChang 2018. 

Their results have faltered since Beijing but as Chelsea Carey pointed out to her male counterparts on the recent Rock Logic podcast, the team members have been delivering children into the world – of course results are going to suffer!

The squad is not to be discounted, just like Niklas Edin – despite war wounds and an opening loss in the Olympic men’s tournament – cannot be discounted. 

Hasselborg, like Edin, also scored a much-coveted European championship gold last November.

Korea and Japan are fairly new to this Olympic scene but both have what it takes to make a run to the final. 

Japan’s Sayaka Yoshimura tends to play Homan tough and will be looking to make her rabid countrymen forget about her rival Satsuki Fujisawa’s legacy of medals – bronze and silver – in the past eight years.

The Japanese have lost last four games to Korea after starting with four straight wins. The most recent defeat was ugly, a 12-4 drubbing at the Players’ Championship in January.

Meanwhile, Korea’s Gim Un-chi  has been there before (Sochi 2014) but now commands a stronger team with former skip Kim Min-ji at third stone.

Kim was described by Carey (again, on the podcast) as the best pure shooter in all of Korea, and she’s a major reason the Gim squad have overtaken 2018 silver medallist Kim Eun-ji in recent years.

In terms of numbers, Korea owns Italy and USA, and provided a good showing at the Players’ Championships but lost two games there, including the semifinal, to Switzerland.

Italy’s Stefania Constantini, USA’s Tabitha Peterson and Denmark veteran Madeleine Dupont will need confidence and fast starts if they hope to make the playoffs. All three teams have Olympic experience but all three have winning records against only two of their opponents heading into Cortina.

Host Italy’s Constantini, fresh off Olympic bronze in mixed doubles, can’t seem to beat the Swiss (1-18) but have been competent against Canada’s Homan (3-4).

The Italians have also won last their four over USA.

Peterson’s USA outfit – another squad that focussed on family since Beijing – has won four of their past five battles with Hasselborg, including an 8-5 win at Steinbach, Man. In January. 

However, the team has poor won/loss records when facing the top contenders, Canada and Switzerland.

Denmark’s Madeleine Dupont makes yet another Olympic appearance with her sister Denise, who carried her nation’s flag at the opening ceremony.

The Danes have a tight, enthused squad that have scored a couple of surprise World Curling Tour victories over the past quadrennial, but they have only one win against Italy in their last seven attempts.

However, the Dupont sisters have raised their win percentage over the past quad (43%) compared to their career (37%) and they hold a tremendous 8-1 won/loss mark over Great Britain.

China and Great Britain are the wild cards in this field, capable of both great and terrible things. 

China’s Wang Rui, another Olympic veteran, qualified outright for these Games but the squad were also have dogged by whispers of brushing offences, similar to the Chinese men’s team. 

Interestingly, the Chinese defeated Canada twice at the now-discontinued Pan Continental Championship last fall.

Great Britain’s Rebecca Morrison is on a current three-game win streak against the Italians after losing her first five in a row. However, this version of Team GB – who are the defending women’s Olympic champions – come into Cortina with the lowest win percentage against this field (25%). 

The Scots had a wild time at last November’s European Championships. 

They looked to have been dumped out of the playoffs – also losing Scotland’s place at the upcoming world championship – before other team’s last-minute results vaulted them into the Euro playoffs… where they ended up with an inexplicable silver medal.